Experienced healthcare administrators in Illinois earned 1.94 times more on average than their entry-level colleagues according to a 2014 report released by the state’s Department of Employment Security. Entry-level healthcare administrators in Illinois earned an average of $65,149, while experienced administrators earned $126,241 on average. The median salary among healthcare administrators in Illinois was $96,770. This was $3,960 higher than the national median salary for this professional classification.
Job Growth Trends in Healthcare Administration
The Illinois Department of Employment Security projects an increase of 13.04% in the number of healthcare administrators between 2012 and 2022, a rate more than 50% faster than overall job growth projections for Illinois. This level of growth should generate an average of 433 jobs a year for healthcare administrators in the state during this ten-year period.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that Illinois was home to the fifth highest number of healthcare administrators in the country as of 2014. In addition, the Chicago metropolitan area had the 2nd highest number of healthcare administrators in the nation.
Hospitals are the major employers of healthcare administrators and tend to pay higher salaries than the other common employers such as medical offices. The Illinois Hospital Association assessed the economic impact of hospitals and health systems in the state in a 2014 report, which found that hospitals were among the top three employers in nearly half of the counties in Illinois.
Job growth in healthcare administration always mirrors overall job growth in the healthcare sector. The healthcare industry in Illinois was one of the few industries that performed well during the recession. The number of jobs in healthcare rose 23.6% between 2000 and 2013, while total employment in Illinois dropped 3.7% during that time. As of 2014, one in ten jobs in Illinois were in the healthcare industry, which employed more than 250,000 people statewide.
Salaries for Illinois’s Healthcare Administrators According to Location
Salaries for healthcare administrators differed dramatically in the different regions of Illinois. The median salary among healthcare administrators varied by 48% between the regions that paid the highest median salary and those that paid the lowest (Illinois Department of Employment Security, 2014):
Shown here for comparative purposes is US Bureau of Labor Statistics data for the major urban and rural areas of Illinois as of 2014:
*These values are equal to or greater than $90 an hour or $187,199 a year. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics does not report salaries higher than these values.
